Some X-Wing Rules you Should Know

Hey guys-

With the recent release of several new ships and upgrade cards, there have been some confusing rules to go along with it (*cough* Omega Leader *cough*). Additionally, there have been several rules questions answered by Frank himself (Frank Brooks, essentially the “Rule Master” for X-Wing) so it will be good to keep them all in one place. If you’re going to Store Champs, be sure you’re update on all the new interactions and keep a copy of the FAQ handy. So…without further useless commentary: Some X-Wing Rules you Should Know!

I wrote this post on 1/17/2016, so if you read it on…say…12/23/2017, it’s probably outdated.

Autothrusters: According to the FAQ, Autothrusters do not trigger when attacked via an Auxiliary Arc from range 1-2. I’m assuming this also goes for the Ghost’s “Special Arc” as well, as both are considered “Arcs.” This is also important to take note of for abilities like Outmaneuver and Backstabber’s ability. EDIT: Auxiliary Arcs are not what TLT’s and other turrets use. Turrets can attack “outside of your arc” while Auxiliary Arcs are what are on the Firespray and YV-666. As far as I know, this is how they have always worked and is simply a clarification, not documenting a change.

Turrets and Attacking Outside of Firing Arc: There is no such thing as a 360 degree firing arc. Ships with turrets, be it their Primary Weapon, Turret Upgrade, or via the Outrider title, still have a firing arc printed on their base, they are just able to attack outside of it. For instance, Chewbacca cannot trigger Outmaneuver while attacking a target that is behind him, nor could a Warden Squadron Pilot trigger Tactician on a target outside of arc, even it was at Range 2. This is a very important rule to understand to use some of the more advanced ships and upgrades properly.

Crack Shot: via the FAQ….Crack Shot is used/spent at the Compare Results step, so after both players have rolled and modified their dice (spent tokens, abilities, etc) but BEFORE damage is calculated and suffered.

Miranda Doni’s Ability and Twin Laser Turret: If Miranda decides to use her ability with Twin Laser Turret, it only affects one of the attacks. Like with Cluster Missiles, they are treated as two separate attacks. Since Miranda’s ability is “Once per round…” the extra/fewer die only occurs on one attack.

Juke and Sensor Jammer’s Timing: Two sides of the same coin. Both allow you to modify your opponents dice BEFORE they can. They are easily countered by your opponent having a focus token, but if they don’t have one (blocked, after a K-Turn, etc) then the focus results may as well be blank results.

Juke vs C3PO: Juke can be used to against a C3PO evade result because it is added to the defender’s initial roll and before the Modify Defense Dice step.

Juke vs Evade Tokens: Juke and spending Evade tokens occur during the Modify Defense Dice step. However, since the Attacker modifies defense dice first, his or her opportunity to use Juke would happen before the Defender has a chance to spend the token. TL:DR Juke doesn’t work here.

Omega Leader: Gah…what a mess.

UPDATE! So, there have been conflicting from both Alex and Frank regarding Omega Leader. I’m gonna say that Frank’s word trumps Alex’s simply because one was via personal communication and the other was an official FFG email. Palpatine can work vs Omega Leader as long as he is not directly involved in the combat.

Integrated Astromech: You can look at the Damage Card you’re about to suffer before triggering Integrated Astromech. Also, discarding R2-D6 via this card does not force you to discard your EPT upgrade.

Wampa: Wampa’s effect occurs at the start of the Compare Results step and is not considered a dice modification. The timing is the same as Crack Shot.

Youngster and TIE/FO’s: Youngster’s ability can affect TIE/FO’s just like standard TIE Fighters.

Youngster and EPTs: Youngster’s ability only works with EPTs that have the “Action:” heading. Predator, Outmaneuver, Opportunist; none of these are eligible to be used by other TIEs.

Twin Laser Turret and R3-A2: When you declare a target inside of your arc, you can trigger R3-A2 and give both you and your target a stress. If using a Twin Laser Turret (without the BTL-A4 title on the Y-Wing), you will only be able to inflict a single stress, as R3-A2 triggers during the Declare Target Step, which is skipped during the second TLT shot. Again, this target must be in your firing arc.

If you want to double stress a target using R3-A2, you must take the BTL-A4 title. The first stress triggers off the Primary Weapon attack, then the second stress off the first TLT attack.

Tactician and Twin Laser Turret:Because of the wording on Tactician, if you attack with TLT, you would inflict 2 stress tokens on a ship that was within your firing arc at Range 2 (one token for each attack). This combo would also work with Cluster Missiles. New FAQ timing chart prevents this. Tactician only triggers once from a “perform this attack twice” situation.

SLAM while Ionized: This a surprising one for me, but I guess makes sense. You can perform a SLAM action after performing a 1 Forward maneuver from the Ion effect. Your SLAM must be speed 1, however.

Anyway, that’s some of the stuff I’ve been seeing around or have encountered personally. Hopefully, all this will get FAQ’ed, but until then, feel free to use this as reference!

Speaking of which, if you haven’t, go to the Fantasy Flight X-Wing Page, go under Support, and look at the FAQ. Never search “X-Wing FAQ” in a search engine, as the most popular hit is probably an outdated one. I also refuse to link to the current one, as it will probably be outdated shortly.

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Where are you getting this info? I still see the FAQ dated 21 Dec 2015 as current.

Cody C

Depends on the issue…you can e-mail questions directly to Frank Brooks or Alex Davies and they recently did a blast of email responses. I belong to a lot of Facebook groups, peruse the FFG forums, as well as r/xwingtmg on Reddit. This is a post that has some (though not all) of those clarifications and the links to the e-mail responses:

Some of it is via Facebook posts and the links get a little funky…is there a specific ruling you’re looking for?

KellyJ

Another one: The nubs on your base ae counted for purposes of bumping into another ship, landing on an obstacle, or flying off the board. They do NOT count when measuring distance (Range 1 vs Range 2) between ships.